Time to bring up 9/11....

Bush’s slipping popularity, the MIA WMDs in Iraq, and the rising numbers of Americans coming home in body-bags seems to be spooking Bush and his minions. So, in true NeoCon fashion, they’re stoking the fires of fear.

WASHINGTON, July 27 — Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, defending the Bush administration's justification of the Iraq war, said today that intelligence on terrorism is by its nature "murky," and that the United States may have little choice in the future but to "act on the basis of murky intelligence" if terror attacks are to be prevented.

Mr. Wolfowitz appeared on three television programs today, carrying a message about the progress [???]he had witnessed on a recent tour of Iraq. But he was pressed on each to defend the intelligence that portrayed Iraq as holding banned weapons that posed an imminent threat — weapons that have yet to be found.

"I think the lesson of 9/11 is that if you're not prepared to act on the basis of murky intelligence, then you're going to have to act after the fact, and after the fact now means after horrendous things have happened to this country," Mr. Wolfowitz said on "Fox News Sunday," referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.

One implication of Wolfowitz's statement is that Americans are safer from terrorist attacks now than we were before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan: an assertion I strongly challenge.

Also, when will Americans balk at the hypocritical and cynical use of the innocent deaths on 9/11 to advance a political agenda on the books of the Project for the New American Century long before the 9/11 attacks?

We are currently squandering $5 billion a month of taxpayers money on military costs alone in Iraq and Afghanistan. That sum doesn’t begin to tally the costs of infrastructure repair—money also flowing from taxpayers’ wallets into the pockets of the business associates of George Bush Sr. and Jr., Dick Cheney and assorted other administration officials and hangers-on.

In the same NY Times article, Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is said to have called on the administration for a budget plan for security, aid and reconstruction costs that would cover four years. Do the math: that’s $240 billion dollars, over the next four years for the military costs alone. Consider what that will do to our domestic budget.

Of course, we may pull out of Afghanistan, which could save $1 billion/year. Then again, we may invade Iran, Syria, North Korea or the Philippines. With the fanatics currently in control of the White House, who knows? Especially if it looks like Bush might lose the 2004 election.

Complete story here.